


The Best of Bad Ideas

by Wildgoosery



Series: Our own, soft hearts [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildgoosery/pseuds/Wildgoosery
Summary: Kravitz takes Taako out on A Real Date, and they have a nice time, and then an argument. And some knots are untangled, and others aren't (because they can't be, not yet.)Sometimes the way to start fixing a thing is to say, out loud, that you want to.





	The Best of Bad Ideas

**Author's Note:**

> This story builds on the previous two [in this series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/648944), but reading them isn't essential to following it.

Taako is perched on the couch with a notebook open in his lap, because he wants to look like a cool sophisticate idly refining a recipe, and not like he's sat here freaking out for a quarter hour after banishing Magnus and Merle from the apartment.

Kravitz is precisely on time, that nerd; a tear appears in the middle of the common room exactly as the hour ticks over. He's wearing the suit Taako likes -- the one with the topstitching on the lapels -- and he's pulled his hair back into a low loose gather. 

He smiles, eyes crinkling, as Taako sets the notebook aside and stands. It's nearly midsummer and Taako has selected an ensemble of unlined cotton, the loose shirt tucked into the waistband of the skirt which swings and settles around his calves. The hat and umbrella are shut away in his closet -- he isn't working tonight.

Kravitz steps forward into arms' length and rests one hand on Taako's hip, fingertip light. "You look very nice," he says, and leans in for a soft cool kiss before standing back to offer his arm. "Ready?"

Fuck, he's smooth. Definitely a step up from the last couple times Taako's been to this particular rodeo. It's a little weird to be dating someone who mostly seems to know what he's doing, but absolutely the kind of weird that Taako could get used to.

Taako folds his hands over Kravitz's elbow. "You're sure this won't kill me?"

"You have my guarantee as a professional."

Taako gestures assent, and Kravitz extends his free hand, darkness melting out of the air and coalescing into a column, then a scythe, which he carves through the space before them in an easy graceful arc. And Taako steps across the rift's threshold with a gooseflesh shiver at how casually he does so, the unknowable powers of old gods bent to his date-night convenience.

Then they're standing in the phosphorescent twilight of the Underdark, tucked back in a stub of an alley between greenish stone walls. It's a neighborhood Taako has definitely been to before, although it's been cleaned up a little from what he remembers -- he's pretty sure there weren't so many brunch places last time. 

Arms still comfortably linked, they step into the early evening foot traffic. 

"You know," Taako says, "I had a gig just a couple blocks from here a while back."

"With...the Bureau...?"

"What? Oh." Taako laughs. "No, I mean a WHILE back."

Kravitz has apparently lived under a rock for the last decade, and had never heard of "Sizzle it Up" until he asked about a tee shirt on the floor of Taako's room. His knowledge now begins and ends with "It was a cooking show," and so Taako embraces this opportunity to educate the poor man. He rattles off the story of how they ended up doing a gig in the basement of a Temple of Torog, and Kravitz smiles as he listens, and laughs, and it's nice. Taako is aware of his own charm, but there's a singular satisfaction in the way Kravitz looks at him; like he's the most interesting, most important thing.

They turn onto a narrower street, mica-flecked walls closing in overhead. Kravitz guides him to a small blue door that's a few steps down from the street, signless and shadowed but artful in its disrepair, and opens it with the nonchalance of familiarity. "We don't have to stay if it isn't your sort of thing," he says, and the two of them slip inside together.

"Kravitz!" A small drow woman with a cash box and a wand is perched on a high stool by the door. Her white hair is shaved on one side, the rest of it falling in a long braid over her shoulder. "Yo, wasn't sure you'd make it. You covering Dean's shift?"

"Not tonight," Kravitz says, which is when she notices he hasn't come alone. 

Her eyebrows shoot right up, then. "Is thisssssssss--"

"Yes," Kravitz says before she can finish. "Taako, this is Caiter. She books the talent here."

"Charmed," Taako says, and he flashes a pleasant smile despite internally screaming with questions about this ENTIRE situation.

Other patrons are piling up behind them, now, and so the two of them hold out their hands for Caiter to tap with her wand, which leaves a dimly glowing imprint of a salamander on each. 

Then they weave through chairs and small round tables to an empty spot at the right of a low stage. About half the people they pass nod or wave or smile at Kravitz when they see him, and glance at Taako, and then make some kind of an "OH HO HO" face before they turn back to their own conversations.

Which Taako doesn't necessarily have a problem with? But as soon as they've taken their seats he folds his arms on the tabletop and leans forward across them, and he says, "M'dude, what the actual fuck."

Kravitz has the good grace to look chagrined. "I'm, ah. Kind of a regular."

"Yeah, no shit," Taako says, although he knows he's grinning wide enough to spoil the pretense of disapproval. "Do you WORK here?"

"Well..."

"Do you have a part time job at a DROW BAR?"

Kravitz chuckles. "You know, looking back, I'm not sure why I thought I'd get away with not telling you this."

"Fuck, telling me what? Wait, are you a bartender? Do you man the coat check? Are you a bouncer on second Tuesdays?"

Kravitz rubs the back of his neck. "It's not that regular of a schedule."

Taako barks out a laugh. "You're a BOUNCER?"

"Only when they're expecting things to get rowdy."

"MY DUDE."

"Mostly I stand next to the door and look menacing."

"Like as a SKELETON? Like the whole Reaper ensemble?"

"Turns out a scythe is a pretty top notch deterrent." Kravitz catches the eye of a passing waiter and holds up two fingers. "I broke up a fight after a show one time. I was already in here once a week. Now I drink for free." He smiles. "And so do you."

"Listen, not gonna lie," Taako says. "Deffo would've pegged the Raven Queen's retinue as a non-compete kind of a deal."

"She doesn't much care what we do in our off hours, so long as we aren't. You know."

"Unbalancing the eternal equation of life and death."

"Pretty much anything short of that's fine," Kravitz says. "She's not one for micro-managing, really."

The waiter returns with two generous pours of blackberry-dark wine, which he places on their table with a Look at Kravitz before moving on to other business. Taako picks up his glass and takes a long sip, studying Kravitz's face over the rim. "You bring a lotta dudes down here?"

Kravitz chuckles and takes a drink of his own. "All right, let's get this out of the way," he says, and he doesn't sound annoyed so much as embarrassed. "I've been coming here for about five years. Alone. I haven't dated anyone in..." He hesitates. "Huh. Come to think of it, I'm not sure. At least that long. I've been on A DATE once or twice but it never went anywhere." Another, larger sip. Is he NERVOUS? "Honestly I'd mostly given up on the whole enterprise, it's such a grind..."

"And then some asshole went and ambushed you," Taako says evenly.

"What? No." Kravitz puts his glass down, sits up a little straighter. "No. Taako, you..." His face softens, and in the dim light of the bar it reminds Taako vividly of how he looked in bed. "You're good."

"Good at inappropriately mixing business and pleasure?"

Taako's hand is on the tabletop; Kravitz covers it with an icy palm. "You're good for me," he says quietly.

Taako grins and swirls his wine. "Glad you noticed," he drawls, nonchalant, and wonders if Kravitz can tell that his heart is pounding. 

It's pretty absurd, really. Like, they have spent a night together in definitively non-platonic style. Taako knows how Kravitz looks when he's talking about his mortal adolescence while lying naked on his back; knows what kind of noises he makes when he's very, VERY excited. 

And yet his reaching over to hold Taako's hand in a bar is...something? 

It sure is some thing.

There's a scattering of applause, and Taako looks to see four women -- two drow, a half-orc and a tiefling, all dressed in flannel shirts and torn black jeans -- step up onto the stage. The tiefling settles herself at a battered drum set while the others strap on lutes and gitterns and quietly confer with each other.

"I'll be honest, here," Taako says, still intensely aware of Kravitz's hand but determined not to be weird about it. "When you said you wanted to take me to a show, I was picturing like...the symphony." 

Kravitz laughs. "Well...I mean, I AM classically trained," he says. "But really what I'm interested in is music as collaborative architecture. I love watching skilled technicians build something together on a stage. Especially live like this, you can really see how they're listening to each other. With a band that's been touring together for so long, there's a...almost a PALPABLE sense of their shared auditory language." 

"Oh my god, you are such a nerd," Taako says. And when Kravitz's face falls, just a fraction, Taako decides he may as well go all in, and he lifts the other man's hand to his lips. "It's cute," he says against cool knuckles. 

Kravitz uncurls his fingers; brushes them along Taako's jaw. "I'll try and keep the commentary to a minimum."

Taako drops both his hands to the table again, and weaves them around the stem of his glass to keep himself from fidgeting. But he's still holding Kravitz's gaze, and he says, "Don't you dare. I get to watch the embodiment of mortality lose his mind over a band, this is gold. Like people PAY for material this good."

"Technically I'm a vessel for enacting a goddess' judgement."

"Yeah see that's hot," Taako says. "That's a killer combo right there, ageless astral justiciar AND dweeblord pedant? Like, hachi machi get my fainting couch."

Kravitz rests his chin on the back of one hand. "So I'm pretty sure you're giving me shit right now," he says, still smiling. 

"Whatever. You love it."

Kravitz looks like he has more to say, but one of the drow is plucking at the strings of her gittern, and the crowd in the bar is quieting. So instead Kravitz shifts around to face the stage, which presses their knees together. And without looking -- seemingly without really thinking about it at all -- he drapes one arm across the back of Taako's chair.

The band introduces themselves as "Glass Shark Daughter," and they play a style which Kravitz explains is "New Bardic" but which mostly sounds like hipster music with cleverer-than-usual lyrics. It kind of gets in its own way a little but it's catchy, and Taako is content to make progress on his wine and listen, and sneak sideways glances at Kravitz listening, which is at least as entertaining as the show. 

Kravitz sits at rapt attention through every song, his fingertips twitching on the tabletop in time with the music's dips and swells. And in the brief pauses when instruments are swapped out and beers knocked back on stage, he leans in close to Taako's ear and whispers an eager torrent of footnotes, almost none of which Taako can follow. 

And fuck, it is EXTREMELY cute.

Somewhere toward the middling end of the set, the tiefling woman takes over vocals for a song she insists is a true story, and which describes an excruciatingly misguided summoning she'd attempted with her friends as a teen. She has exactly the sort of sneakily wry sense of humor that Taako finds irresistible, and by the end he has his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing too loudly. 

He feels a cool brush of a kiss on his temple, and glances over to see that Kravitz is smiling at him with such radiantly obvious affection that he feels it in his chest. And then he looks back to the stage and draws an intentional breath, and tries to think about how the band members should have coordinated better on the plaids front, and not about what that smile probably means.

The set finishes after four more songs and a refill on their wine. It's not really a standing ovation kind of a venue but Kravitz claps and whistles, his hands held high. And after the band has put their instruments away in a back room, they come over to say brief hellos to Kravitz, and smile with polite curiosity at Taako, before heading up front to the bar.

Taako watches them go, and wonders if he was supposed to have made small talk with them or otherwise acted like he gave a shit about anyone here beside his date. But when he looks back at Kravitz his attention is entirely on Taako himself. And he says, "You know, that one song reminded me..." He pauses, a little sheepish. "Is it all right if I talk about work?"

Taako picks up his wine and waves Kravitz on magnanimously.

"So a couple weeks back I got called in on an involuntary possession," Kravitz says. "Which, normally this is very bad stuff, very powerful souls just this side of a lich who've burrowed into a living mind. Only it TURNS OUT this particular soul is some dime-a-dozen sorcerer, and she has SOMEHOW ended up inside of a Neverwinter shop cat." Kravitz chuckles, remembering. "I still don't have any idea how she managed it, we only found out what she'd done because she started telling fortunes."

Taako holds up a hand. "As a CAT."

"Standard letter-pointing operation," Kravitz says, as if those words strung together mean something self-evident. "So it wasn't hard to track her down, what with the posters everywhere, but actually hashing things out once I'd caught her was a real pain. A cat's body can't speak Common, like it's physically impossible, and I didn't want to HURT the poor thing if I could avoid it, I mean I'm not unreasonable."

Taako grins into his glass. "True."

"Having her spell her story out with a letter board was taking too long, so I ended up having to do the entire investigation telepathically. Which always gives me a headache when it ISN'T cross species, AND! She absolutely INSISTED she'd been summoned. So I said to her, 'Look, JUST FOR STARTERS you aren't a demon, that isn't even the right term.'" Kravitz affects a ridiculous accent for his own lines, and Taako nearly chokes on a swallow of wine. "And the guy who owned this cat obviously wasn't a necromancer, he just thought his pet was a genius."

Taako smiles and nurses his drink through several inter-planar loopholes, a small house fire, and a scramble to re-home the exorcized cat when the owner decided she wasn't worth the trouble once she couldn't help him make rent.

"And THAT'S how I ended up with a pet," Kravitz says, holding his own glass up in salute to a job mostly accomplished. "Which, by the way, has indirectly answered the question of whether or not you can visit my place. Turns out YES, after the renovations, non-lethal to mortals."

Taako drains his glass down to the dregs and places it deliberately on the table, and says "Good to know" in what he hopes is a thoughtful rumble. And he lays a hand on Kravitz's thigh with careful nonchalance. "So I gotta ask. When you're telling the story about how we absolutely owned you that one time, do you do a voice for me, too?"

Kravitz's arm curls around Taako's shoulders. "First of all," he says, "I was owned by a giant skeleton made of ghosts."

"Oh come on, I'd say we had things WELL in hand before it showed up."

Kravitz laughs. His fingers are on the nape of Taako's neck. "And second," he says, now very close. "My dear, I would never dream of impersonating you."

Taako turns his head; presses a kiss to the hollow below Kravitz's jaw. "Because you'd fuck it up."

"Oh absolutely," Kravitz says, and his voice is a soft buzz against Taako's lips.

"But you DO tell the story, though," Taako says. His fingertips trace patterns on soft, smooth wool.

Another laugh. Embarrassed? Shy? "I mean...the focus has shifted a little..."

Taako kisses him again, just behind his ear. He knows half the bar is probably watching this absolutely shameless PDA bullshit, but he also doesn't care. "Has it," he says.

"Well." Kravitz's fingers slip into Taako's hairline, following the curve of his skull. "For a few months there, it was a story about how some maniac wizard tried to 'tentacle my dick,' immediately followed by losing a game of cards to a man trapped under a mirror."

"And now?"

"Now it's the beginning of something else." 

"And what's that?"

Kravitz pulls away a little, so that they can see each other. And he smiles with such transparent warmth that Taako forgets himself a little; forgets the part he'd prefer to play. He's sure he must be gawping like an idiot as Kravitz murmurs, "I'm not sure yet."

Taako manages a laugh. "Got something in particular in mind?"

Kravitz chuckles; leans his forehead against Taako's cheek. "I...probably shouldn't say."

"Well now you DEFINITELY have to."

"Taako." A cool sigh on his skin. "I don't think you actually want to hear this."

"Try me."

The pause is long enough for Taako to honestly worry he's pushed too hard somehow. And then, very quietly, Kravitz says, "I'm falling for you."

Taako's ears are burning. A large part of him wants to grab the reins and steer this whole thing back to safer territory. But he has also had two glasses of wine, and several weeks to think about what happened the last time they saw each other; how they spent that night, and morning, and early afternoon. And if he's honest, he's tired of thinking ABOUT it. He would very much rather just have it again.

Taako's hand is still on Kravitz's leg. He squeezes it now and says, "You think I don't wanna hear that?"

"Well," Kravitz says. "Do you?"

Taako swallows, and takes a breath, and kisses Kravitz's forehead. "Come on," he says. "Let's get out of here."

For a moment, Kravitz leans into him, his arm pulling Taako close. "All right," he says. And then he straightens in his chair with a frown that Taako does not like at all. "Okay."

Taako crosses his legs and folds his hands on his knee. "Okay what?"

"So to be clear, we absolutely should...I mean, your place or mine, that's a thing that should happen."

Taako can feel his back begin to tense, but he keeps his tone light. "No argument here."

Kravitz squares his shoulders. And to his credit, he looks at Taako directly as he says, "I think that before we get into this any further, we should figure a few things out."

Taako's grip on his knee tightens. "What things?"

"Well. Just to start, I think we should talk about what happened between us in Lucas Miller's lab."

"Pretty sure we just did," Taako says.

"I mean ACTUALLY talk about it."

"What's there to talk about? I did a bunch of dope shit and met a hot dude, like that's an above-average Candlenights right there."

Kravitz winces and looks down at his hands. "Taako...I tried to KILL you."

"Well. Same," Taako says. "Whatever, that was work. Nothing personal."

"Yes, but it still HAPPENED."

"All right, my dude," Taako says, "you're gonna have to walk me through what your damage is here. Because I distinctly remember how you broke into my apartment and sat me down for an all-night convo about this exact fucking thing."

"We talked about the situation with Refuge, not-"

"Sure, you're right," Taako snaps, "THAT NIGHT we talked about Refuge, and then the next time we made vases and I explained why I don't belong in Ghost Prison."

Kravitz now looks more annoyed than stricken, and Taako can feel himself bristling in reply. He listens, his lips pressed into a line, as Kravitz says, "Yes, the bounty on you was rescinded. But that's not what I mean." Kravitz pauses and crosses his arms over his chest. "We both work for powerful organizations with sometimes incompatible interests. There's no guarantee that we won't end up on opposite sides of a bad situation again."

Taako snorts. "Bubbele, just about fuck-all is guaranteed in this job, I've kinda gotten used to it."

"We're navigating a treacherous landscape of conflicting loyalties," Kravitz says, with a patience that Taako absolutely hates. "And I just think it would be good for us to be on the same page about this."

"About what? Murdering each other?" Taako flashes a brittle smile. "Sure, let's all try not to kill the dude we're banging."

Kravitz sighs. "Taako...avoiding this isn't going to make it any easier. Eventually we're going to have to--"

"Hey, listen." Taako unfolds his legs; lays his hands flat on the tabletop. "How about let's just not."

"What?"

"This," Taako says.

Kravitz shifts back to soft concern, which at this point is just as annoying as patience. "Do you want to...leave the bar-?"

"I want to do literally anything other than have this conversation with you." Taako pushes back his chair; gets to his feet. "Have a nice night."

Kravitz stands. "Where are you going?"

"Gonna hail a glass cab and head home," Taako says, and turns away from Kravitz's frown to walk toward the front of the bar.

"We're underground," Kravitz says from somewhere just behind him. He's smart enough not to grab Taako's arm. "The Bureau's vehicles can't-"

"Then I guess I'll find a fucking elevator, won't I?" They're through the thicket of tables, and Caiter stares as Taako sweeps past her, his skirt swirling around his legs. His neck and his ears and his face are hot, and he's sweating, and he hates it. He hates when he gets like this, and he hates that Kravitz is seeing it, and he hates that he let himself be cornered into this fucking conversation at all.

Then they're out on the dim sidewalk again, and Kravitz finally does reach for him -- a gentle hand on his shoulder. "At least let me take you home," Kravitz says.

Taako shrugs him off and glares up at the cavern ceiling, distant and glittering. "Fine."

Kravitz pulls his scythe out of nothing; cuts a window that shines with warm lamplight, a slice of Taako's apartment that hangs in the air.

"Goodnight," Kravitz says.

And Taako wants to kiss him, is the thing. He wants to fix this somehow. He wants to say, "Let's forget about all that crap," and take this man home with him, and do a whole bunch of shit that's way more fun than being angry, that ends with the both of them naked and laughing in bed.

Instead he says, "Thanks for the show," and steps forward through the tear.

*

Taako is banging around the kitchenette when Magnus comes back from wherever he's been -- probably training with Carey, judging by the sweatpants. Magnus disappears into the bathroom, and the shower comes on. A little while later he walks barefoot into the common room with wet hair and fresh clothes, and settles down onto the couch with his crochet. Taako pounds a stick of butter with a rolling pin on the counter and pretends not to notice him.

Once the racket has died down, Magnus asks, "How'd it go?"

"Well I'm standing here talking to you in an apron instead of getting laid," Taako says, "so how d'you think it fucking went."

Magnus works another couple of rounds, digesting. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Taako's creaming the butter and sugar by hand, and his hair is stuck to his face with sweat, along with a smear of flour from when he last pushed it out of his eyes. "What I WANT is to finish these cookies, and go sit in the pocket spa, and eat all of them by myself."

"Did you have a fight?"

"Mags, I cannot emphasize enough that this is none of your fucking business."

"What was the fight about?"

Taako dumps in the dry ingredients too quickly, and a cloud of flour rises from the bowl. "It wasn't even really a fight," he says. "I didn't want to talk about something, he wouldn't let it go." Taako shoots a look at Magnus. "That's a hint, by the way."

"Why didn't you want to talk about it?"

"Magnus!" Taako slaps his hands down on the countertop. "Ease the fuck up, all right? I don't need this shit twice in one fucking evening!"

Magnus is silent while Taako stirs in the flour with a wooden spoon, then a handful each of chocolate chips and walnuts. He's methodically hooking his way through a sock when Taako flops down on the couch next to him, the mixing bowl under one arm.

Taako pinches off a lump of cookie dough and rolls it between his fingers. "He wanted to do that thing where you make a bunch of bullshit promises," he says, and pops the ball into his mouth.

"What promises?" asks Magnus. "And bullshit how?"

"All promises are bullshit."

"Yikes."

"I mean what the hell does he want me to say? 'Yeah sure, my man, you're a skeleton cop for a death goddess but it's totally cool, absolutely no way that's gonna end badly.'"

"Okay...wow." Magnus sighs. "Look...you like this guy, right?"

Taako scowls and eats another dough ball. He'll feel like garbage in about an hour, but he can't bring himself to give a shit. "Sure," he says.

"Do you...see things GOING anywhere? With him?"

"Not right now I don't."

"Come on."

"Fuck, Magnus, I don't know. I don't know! Like he basically told me he's in love with me-"

Magnus' head jerks up. "Wait, SERIOUSLY?"

"And then all of this shit happened and it's a LOT, okay? It's a LOT."

Magnus sets his crochet aside. "Look, Taako...when I married Julia-"

Taako feels his ears flatten a little. "Mags, you don't have to-"

"When I married Julia," Magnus says again, stubborn, "I told her that I'd stay with her for the rest of my life. I said that I'd take care of her, and have children with her, and grow old with her." A pause. "And in the end, none of that happened."

Taako winces. "That's not-"

"But listen, Taako, I don't REGRET telling her any of those things," Magnus says. "I meant them. And that's..." He runs a hand over his beard and considers. "Making promises you might not be able to keep is like...kind of what a relationship IS. That's where you've gotta start."

Taako looks down at the bowl in his lap. "This isn't the same thing," he says.

"I mean. True." Magnus reaches over to steal a glob of dough, which Taako allows. "You're not getting married."

"NO."

"Yet," Magnus adds. 

Taako scowls and covers the bowl with both arms. "Yeah all right, I'm firing you as my therapist. Dough privileges immediately revoked."

And in a perfect illustration of why Taako can stand to live with him at all, Magnus laughs and leaves it at that. 

Taako pulls his legs up toward his chin, the bowl on the couch cushion beside him, and watches the steady flicker of Magnus's hands; watches the little silver hook that flashes through loops of persimmon yarn. He asks after Carey, and eats another half-dozen almost-cookies while Magnus rambles on about the potential utility of Thieves' Cant, which she's apparently been teaching him. Magnus wonders aloud why Taako keeps slithering out of Avi's poker nights, and Taako snorts and says he doesn't want to embarrass Magnus in front of his new boyfriend, and Magnus leans across the couch to grab the bowl and shove a handful of dough into his mouth, and only hands it back after Taako kicks him in the ribs. 

Somewhere on the far side of midnight Magnus finishes his sock. He says goodnight, and thumps Taako on the shoulder, and disappears into his room. And then Taako sits on the couch alone and watches a forest pass beneath the window in the floor, deep shadow mottled with the silver gray of leaves in the moonlight. 

Taako wraps up what's left of the cookie dough and sticks it in the icebox. He methodically tidies the kitchen -- wipes the counter, washes and dries and replaces the dishes, shakes the flour from his apron and hangs it in the pantry. He turns down the lamps in the common room and stands in the quiet dark, his hand on the small hard lump under his shirt.

His bed is covered in all of the clothes he'd tried on and discarded, and a fresh wave of embarrassment burns up the back of his neck. He's still wearing his outfit from the bar, and he wants to just drop it on the floor and get into bed and read something trashy until he's calmed down enough to maybe actually sleep for once, because holy shit is he in the mood to be unconscious for a few hours.

He gets undressed, sifts through the tangle on his bed, tucks it all away into the closet and the bureau; pairs his kicked-off shoes and lines them up in a neat row along the wall. He slips on his shirt from the company retreat, and lays down on top of his duvet, and pulls out the Stone of Farspeech that hangs on a cord around his neck. 

The Stone's voice recognition isn't amazing. He has to speak at uncomfortably full volume when he says, "I want to talk to Kravitz."

He waits for the stone's flickering blue glow to steady. And then he says, softer now, "Hey. It's me." He licks his lips. "You around?"

"Taako!" Kravitz's voice sounds thin and flat over Stone, but hearing it still winds something up in Taako's chest. "Hi, I wasn't...I didn't think I'd hear from you tonight."

"Sorry about that," Taako says.

"Do you want me to come over--"

"No," Taako says. "I'd kind of rather just...this is easier."

"All right."

"I still don't want to talk about this shit," Taako says. He can't quite keep the edge off the words. "Like, just to be crystal fucking clear. Whatever you say to me right now, at the end of the day if things break bad it won't matter what you told me. You'll go ahead and do whatever it is you're gonna do."

There's a long pause. And then, "I don't think I understand."

Taako closes his eyes and tries not to think about what's going on with his stomach. The cookie dough was definitely a mistake. "Listen," he says, "It's not complicated. I know how these conversations go. You'll swear up and down that you'd never hurt me, that you'd never betray me, like pick your bullshit platitude. But look, this isn't a fucking magical contract. You're not binding yourself with blood. Like let's not mince words here, nothing you can say to me now will actually keep you from murdering me later."

"Taako, you can't--"

"My dude, you seriously need to let me get through this or I'm hanging up right now."

He can hear Kravitz draw one of his just-for-show deep breaths of frustration. Then, "I'm sorry. Go on."

"The thing is," Taako says, "I'm not actually afraid of you. Like you're objectively terrifying, but...I don't know. It doesn't really bother me?" Taako presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. "But I think it SHOULD? I think maybe my instincts are just permanently fucked up. Like I can't trust myself to feel the right away about anything just in general, let alone you specifically." Taako's arms fall back to the bed, and he stares at the shadowed ceiling. "So that's not great."

Kravitz makes a small attentive noise. And for a little while -- for maybe as long as a minute, between the adrenaline and nausea it's hard to be sure -- Taako lays there in the dark and tries to force himself to calm down. He'd like to get the rest of this out in something like a normal tone of voice.

"Listen, Kravitz," he says. "If things get serious with us...if we both go all-in on this thing." A deep breath. "That's gonna be it for me. I mean don't get me wrong, this gig pays and I need the money, but do not underestimate how much of a selfish motherfucker I can be. Like if we were a Thing, and I had choose between you and my job? Between you and like...the WORLD?" He feels like he's about to throw up. Fuck, this is the absolute worst. "Well obviously I'd choose you. Like it's not even a question."

He can hear Kravitz start to say something -- a single strained syllable bit off just in time.

"And the thing is..." Fuck, he sounds like he's about to cry. He licks his lips and tries again. "The thing is, I know perfectly well it's not the same for you. I'm not an idiot. I know that if your boss told you to kill me, you would. Like you're not an asshole, you'd feel BAD about it, I'm sure you'd prefer not to end my life in violence if you have a fuckin' say in the matter. But you'd do it."

He knows that it's his fault; that he specifically requested it. But Kravitz's silence is absolutely unbearable.

Taako blows out a long exhale and says, "All right, that's all I got. You can talk now."

Kravitz takes a long time to reply. When he does, his voice is thick and exhausted. "I wish that you remembered how you died," he says. "Before Refuge, I mean."

Holy shit this was a very bad idea. "Yeah, well I don't," Taako says.

"All I have in my book is a number," Kravitz says, "It's ridiculous. It's infuriating, I want to be able to give you some kind of advice, or tell you what to expect but..." A wordless noise of frustration. "And you have NO idea why your Umbra Staff would have acted on its own?"

"No."

Another, even longer pause, during which Taako wants to crawl out of his skin. Then Kravitz says, "You know that I'm a construct. That the part of me which can speak and act is a fragment of the Raven Queen."

"I would've guessed 'aspect,' but yeah. I know."

"My contract with her is bilaterally at-will," Kravitz says. "She can rescind my use of this body, but she cannot compel me to act." 

Fuck, this is awful. "Sure." 

"You're right," Kravitz says. "I take my job very seriously. The laws of life and death exist for a reason, and I'd rather you not break them. And not only because of work, I just...that's not what I would want for you. That's a very dark road, and--"

Taako's shoulders are so tense it's beginning to hurt. "I don't think I asked for your necromancy hot takes, but good to know, I guess."

"Taako--"

"Look, just say whatever it is that you're so horny to get off your fucking chest."

"All right," Kravitz says, with a cool formality that makes Taako feel even more like garbage. "If another bounty is placed on you, I'll make sure that you know. If you've been unfairly targeted, I'll advocate for you within my organization, and I'll help in any way I'm able." He pauses; draws an audible breath and lets it out again. "If I'm personally instructed to hurt you, I'll refuse. And if necessary, I'll void my contract." 

"Fuck off," Taako snaps, voice reedy with the tightness of his throat.

"...What?"

"You're not serious."

"I'm completely ser--"

"We've been on three fucking dates!" It's a good thing Taako's soundproofed his room, because now that the shock has worn off he's yelling at full volume, and the last thing he needs is for Magnus to come busting in on this mess. "What the hell with this...this suicide pact bullshit?"

"It isn't bullshit," Kravitz says, quiet and stiff. "I'm only telling you this at all because I--" Something in his voice catches. "I wouldn't want you to think I'd just disappeared."

Taako can't think of a way to reply to that; of where to even start.

Eventually, Kravitz goes on. "It didn't feel right," he says. "Not saying this to you. It's so unlikely that any of this will even come up, but..." A soft huff of laughter. "My life has become a landscape of unlikely things."

"Well," Taako murmurs, deflated. "You know. Same."

"I'm sorry," Kravitz says. "It was thoughtless of me to try to talk to you about this in a bar. I knew that when we...that if I went home with you, I wasn't going to want to have a serious conversation. But I shouldn't have brought it up in public."

"Sure."

"I had a nice evening," Kravitz says. "Let me know if--"

"Stop acting so fucking polite," Taako mutters, although there's no teeth to it. "I'm being awful. You can tell me I'm being awful."

"You're fine," Kravitz says. "You feel how you feel."

"I feel like a wet campfire," Taako says. "Full of raw eggs."

A soft, surprised laugh. "What?"

Taako folds his arms over his eyes. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck I hate this. I HATE this."

"I can let you--"

"No." Taako sits up on his bed; looks down at himself. He isn't wearing anything but socks and his underwear and an overlarge shirt. His hair probably has flour in it. There's a smear of dough on his bracer. He picks at it with his thumbnail and says, "So where are you?"

"Home," Kravitz says. "My apartment."

"With your cat."

Kravitz laughs. "Yes."

"What's the cat's name?"

"WELL," Kravitz says. "Her previous owner called her 'Princess.'"

Taako snorts. "Gross."

"You can rename her if you like, it's not as if she answers to anything."

"I'd have to meet her," Taako says. "You can't just name a cat without being introduced, that's fucking disrespectful."

"Sure," Kravitz says. Then, hesitant, "Do want to come over?"

"What, now?"

"Yeah."

Taako's run out of dough crust to pick off of his bracer; he fidgets with the hem of his shirt instead, twisting it around his fingers. "I don't want to talk about work anymore," he says. "Or death. Or my fucked-up memory."

"All right," Kravitz says.

Taako scootches to the edge of his bed; swings his legs around and stands. The shirt barely covers his ass, and his legs look skinny and stupid like this, the socks and the shirt hem both hitting him in the worst possible places.

Taako swallows and says, "All right."

Kravitz is a precision instrument; the tear opens a couple of steps away, ending well below the ceiling and at a perfect height to walk through. 

Kravitz himself stands just beyond it, shimmering a little with magic and distance. Anxiousness has thinned out his skin; hollowed his cheeks. He's holding his scythe in both of his hands, his knuckles skeletal sharp. 

His eyes are on Taako's face. And Taako can't think of the last time someone's looked at him like this. 

"It's good to see you," Kravitz says. 

Taako laughs a little. "You saw me like...literally three hours ago."

"Still."

"You're such a dork," Taako says, and steps through the portal.

It's warm in Kravitz's apartment. Most of the floor is covered by a woven carpet, comfortably threadbare. There's a desk made of dark wood, and a small filing cabinet. Mismatched bookshelves line the walls, taller than he is and double-stacked. There's a fireplace, and a squashy leather couch with a book laid open on one of the cushions, and two matching armchairs. An upright piano stands in the corner, the top board heaped with loose sheet music. A few paintings hang above the mantle, portraits of men and women in old-fashioned clothes who look a little bit like Kravitz, especially around the eyes and mouth. There's a padded basket on the floor next to the fireplace, with a cream-and-tabby cat curled up asleep inside it.

And there's Kravitz, right in front of him, cravat and shoes and jacket gone, cuffs rolled up and shirt halfway unbuttoned. The scythe is gone again. Taako can feel the change in the air as the rift closes behind him.

Taako steps forward, slides his arms around Kravitz's waist and presses his nose to the clean cotton collar. "You're cold," he mutters against Kravitz's neck.

Arms fold around Taako's back; gently hold him close. "We can fix that."

"Mmm." Taako turns his head a little to squint at the furniture. "You don't have a bed."

A soft chuckle. "Sorry."

"So listen," Taako says. "I absolutely still want to fuck you later."

That startles up a real laugh. "I mean..." Kravitz's face is in his hair. "Look, I'm not going to argue with you."

Taako lifts his chin; kisses Kravitz's jaw. "You better not."

"And in the meantime?"

"Hmm." Taako sighs and steps back to arm's length. "Do you have tea? Like regular tea, not some kinda ghost thing?"

Kravitz's face is soft and handsome again, and he's grinning at Taako so widely that it hurts a little to look at. Not in a bad way, it's just. Fuck, it's a lot. "I do," Kravitz says. "Only black, though."

"Here is my three-part plan," Taako says, and ticks the following off on his fingers. "Part one, tea. Part two, couch. Part three, suck up to your cat."

For some reason Taako can't begin to guess at, Kravitz's entire face tenses for a moment. He takes one of Taako's hands, and stands there holding it for a beat, staring at Taako's sternum. And then he shakes it off, and smiles. And he says, "I'll put the kettle on."

The couch, it turns out, is unbelievably comfortable. And between the fire and the tea, it's actually very nice to curl up against Kravitz's chest just as it is, cool arms around him and warm mug in his hands, his bare legs folded up under a blanket that Kravitz fished out from somewhere.

The cat watches from her basket as they murmur about the show they'd seen, and how well Kravitz can or can't play the piano (he insists that he isn't very good, but Taako suspects he's full of shit.) Eventually the cat deigns to pad across the room, weaving a circuitous route through the legs of the armchairs. She sniffs at the hand Taako offers, then bumps her head against it.

"Pretty sure that she's a Geraldine," Taako says, scratching her small cheek as she purrs. "But I'll have to think about it."

He feels Kravitz kiss the top of his head. "Taako."

"Yeah?"

"I..." His arms around Taako tighten a little. "Taako, I'm glad you're here."

Taako sips his tea. "Baby, you can just say the thing you want to say," he murmurs. "Like I'm not gonna bite you."

"I know."

"You've basically already said it."

Kravitz groans a little. "I know."

Taako leans over to put the mug on the floor. Then he pulls the blanket to his chin, and turns in toward Kravitz's chest, and shifts around his arms and shoulders until he's ideally snugged up.

His hand is in the front of Kravitz's shirt; his fingers slip through soft chest hair. "I'm getting there," he murmurs.

Kravitz runs a fingertip along the shell of Taako's ear, and hums wordless reassurance.

The cat jumps silently up onto the couch, and crams herself into a gap between their legs, and revs up a purr that sounds like a broken motor.

And it's nice.

It's enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my FANTASTIC betas -- Paul, Scott and Redacted -- and to all the friends who encouraged me while I picked away at this thing over the last couple of months.
> 
> In between posting the previous story and this one, I assembled [an INTENSELY sincere Taako/Kravitz FST, "You Can Relax Around Me."](http://wildgoosery.tumblr.com/post/158123028683/you-can-relax-around-me-songs-for-taako-and) If I'm being honest it's BASICALLY the soundtrack for this series of fics? Not kidding, kind of fucked myself up a little while putting it together, turns out I have a lot of Feelings About These Dudes, who'd have thought?
> 
>  **EDIT:** Oh hey look [my tablet pen slipped and I drew a bunch of illustrations for this thing!](http://wildgoosery.tumblr.com/post/159999699778/scenes-from-the-best-of-bad-ideas-because-whats)


End file.
